Not quite. It was just "Kamen Rider Tsuku" rather than the actual "Tsukuyomi" reading seen in the belt. They also used Geiz' standby and jingle rather than the third effect of the driver that's used for the actual Tsukuyomi reading.

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Originally Posted by Xtreme RX

So, turns out Nobuhiro Mouri wrote this episode too. Huh. The quality of the show has gone up significantly since Mouri starting writing for it. He's done the best tributes and now is amping the stakes. I wonder what Shimoyama is busy with?

He's the main writer for two different anime right now, and also was writing the Heisei Generations Forever movie.

Time for Sougo to stop listening to what Micchi says. I mean, if you give up that belt, who's gonna protect Zawame from Invess? Wait... I think I'm getting my Rider shows mixed up again.

But then, maybe I'm not, because an episode of Kamen Rider firing on all cylinders like this can't help but remind me of the best parts of Gaim. The parts where the plot was so engrossing you almost got angry when the episode ended because you wanted to see what was next right now. The parts where all the characters had their own fleshed out goals and were all moving against one another to achieve them while dealing with interesting dilemmas, making the story that much more exciting.

That's pretty much this episode. I mean, that description is probably a bit overblown, but my eyes haven't been this glued to the screen since Hazard Form's debut in Build, an episode where, funnily enough, I'm pretty sure I also did a gag in the episode thread pretending to confuse it with Gaim.

The point is, this one totally ruled. I don't think I even need to say much more than that because for once I think Zi-O completely speaks for itself.

I think I've pegged down the main part of the show that's not working for me: Geiz. I really feel like the show isn't being consistent with him. His entire goal was to come back and stop Sougo, but he's constantly waffling between "I must kill you" and "I guess I don't want to kill you anymore?" That could work if handled well, but it's been done really poorly. I'm not sure how much of that is the writing and how much is the acting, but it feels like Geiz has no consistent characterization and his attitude towards Sougo changes whenever the plot needs it to. Take him out of the equation and I think we'd have a much stronger show with just Sougo, Woz, and that girl who stands around in the background and never does anything.

I also wish they'd pulled out this prophetic dream card earlier. It gives a much better rationalization for Sougo's stupid king delusion, which felt like just a random derangement up until this point. Maybe if they hadn't tried to cram an hour of television into the first episode we could have dropped this plot point much sooner.

With all the time traveling it might be more to it than just Oma Zi-O being the big bad guy. Sougo having that dream, could be from another timeline. Like how the person having dreams of (true) events from an other timeline. But then how many layers of timeline has been changed. Few games I played follow that trope of "What you dream may not have happened in your life, but it did at one point in another timeline". So we have...

Current Sougo is having dreams from alternative timeline.
Oma Sougo had the same dream from it but it lead to him being an evil overlord.
Dream Sougo of that timeline witness it happening for real.

This would mean there are at least 3 different Sougo's, if the dream never happened in their timelines, but it did happen before it got changed\leading into Oma Sougo Timeline. Just like how they warned Current Sougo about messing with timeline. Someone did messed around big time with Dream Sougo Timeline.

Now the curious question is who did Dream Sougo spoke to? It seems someone from the future trying to set him to a path(unless that was yet another Sougo.. the 4th one). Mentioning, how he would save the world. So if to say the big plot twist would be the true villain was someone else but instead of 50% population wipe, it was 99%-100% of the population wipe. That means the 50% population wipe would be saving the world but in the wrong way.

So what made Oma Sougo decided to go that path? Perhaps he got scared that the true villain is hidden among the population, that would rise and go for 100% wipe. So the only way to encounter it, was to prevent it by going for a evil overlord. Or perhaps Oma Zi-O got brainwashed or possessed by something. Well just feel like throwing crazy theories around xD

Love the episode overall, and how it's setting up the timeline shakeup to come.
Tsukasa is really coming across as pivotal to how the tone changes.

Love the emphasis on dreams too, though I find it interesting about the face shrouded in shadows. The obvious implication is it's himself, but I think it might be a certain somebody from Decade's series instead. Overall, keeps the series very self-contained without having to use an overabundant 'mystic/supernatural' story device, and still maintains the overall theme of pushing for your dreams.

The retainer design was pretty sweet too. Looking forward to seeing those and more on what they are.

Overall, really like how this show is developing out and all the heavy handed foreshadowing.

And yeah, the dream is very emblematic of time travel stories and the loop/paradoxical nature of time travel stories. Where dreams and Deja vu are related to how timelines diverge because of looped natures and how the loop diverges in each subsequent loop. Cyclical theories of time travel. Which fits the nature of the overall clock theme of how 1-12 are a cycle that repeats, but changes from night to day and day to night.